Carolyn Youden just laughs when you ask if she's noticed an increase in rental rates.

"I know there was one year we didn't have a rent increase," she says, still smiling.

Actually, there were two: 2009 and 2010. When, as Youden says, "the economy hit bottom."

Rifling through past rental statements, she chronicled five increases in seven years. Youden's monthly rent was $640, including pet fees for two cats, when she moved into a two-bedroom with a loft at the Versailles Gardens Apartments in 2006. Now, it's $775, including pet fees for a dog.

She said the greatest increase yet was an additional $25 for people and $15 for pets enacted in August. It was the first pet fee increase since she's lived there.

CREEPING RENTAL RATES

Tenants in Stark County paid more in rent the past three years than during the recession, according to the American Community Survey released by the Census Bureau on Nov. 14.

The number of units where people paid less than $200 in gross rent between 2007 and 2009 fell from 5.5 percent to 4.2 percent for the 2010 to 2012 period. The total number of units in the $300 to $499 range fell from 17.7 to 14.4 percent in the same time period.

Meanwhile, the number of renters in apartments that cost $500 to $749 increased from 37.7 percent to 41.5 percent of all rental units, according to according to a census report.

Tricia Reed, a Realtor with Cutler Real Estate, said she's seen rental houses in Stark County priced at $1,100 or more when the actual value is closer to $900. It's due in part to an increase in demand and the perception of it, she said.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Cutler Real Estate facilitates leases between landlords and tenants in Northeast Ohio. Reed said she has seen an increase in foreclosures, short sales and energy workers in the past few years, but not enough to warrant some of the overpriced rentals.

"They've heard the stories that these people that are coming from out of town have so much money, they'll pay two and three times what the warranted market value is," Reed said.

Still, Stark County is beginning to see some of the effects of Utica Shale drilling as limited housing in Carroll County forces workers to look north. Reed said industry offices in the Canton area also draw a lot of tenants.

"Our big ones are Timken and Diebold," Reed said. "And with Chesapeake's headquarters being in Louisville, we don't have an inventory."

In counties northwest of Stark with less gas and oil action, rents are "a lot more reasonable," she said.

Dan Coen, co-owner of the Utica Shale Housing Group which focuses on workforce housing and the DDK Property Group which serves mostly low-income renters, said energy workers still live mostly south of Stark County. He expects that to change within the next year or two as energy activity grows but said abundant Canton-area housing should prevent a huge effect on rental rates.

Page 2 of 2 - "With the housing being so scarce in those southern counties, more and more people will drive," he said.

Bill Lemmon, of Brookwood Management, said Stark County's rental occupancy has regained strength. The company, which owns Versailles Gardens Apartments in North Canton, said rent has increased about 2.5 to 3.5 percent a year in the past two years.

Since there weren't as many rent increases during the recession, Lemmon said, they've tried to catch up with operating costs now that the market is improving.

"Within the last two years, the market has turned around, occupancies have been good, and rents have gone up somewhat," he said.

ADJUSTING TO RENT HIKES

Youden, 60, said she understands operating costs increase but said rent used to be much less expensive in the Canton area. She retired from Timken in 2008 and lives with her husband on a mostly fixed income. He works in construction management.

To keep their current apartment in North Canton, Youden said, they've had to cut back on personal expenses every year.

"We used to go out two, three times a week," she said. "Then it became once a week. Now it's never."

Kristina and Anthony Kosunick, who live in Englewood Manor Apartments in Plain Township with their two children, are also unsure how to sustain their current living situation if rent continues to increase. Kristina is a stay-at-home mother to a 7-year-old son with autism and a 3-year-old daughter. Anthony works at the Akron-Canton Airport.

They collect Social Security disability payments for their son, which have reached the maximum, and rely on food stamp assistance. Assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was cut by an average of 5.5 percent at the start of November because of an expired provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,

The Kosunicks said they expected rent to increase at some point.

"But we didn't know they were going to keep on doing it every year," Anthony said.

The rent was $470 a month when they moved into the two-bedroom apartment in 2008. It went up for the first time in January to $490 and will go up to $510 this January. They were told the market value had increased, Kristina Kosunick said.

Ideally, the family would like to find a three-bedroom for less than $500. Kristina said most rentals she's seen, even on the lower-end, are closer to $600. Whether they can continue to live in their current apartment depends on the ability of social services to continue meeting their needs.